What did you do to your trains today?

[Mister No]

Just a side note on the colours of the engines on Skarloey's Railroad: in Rev. W. Awdry's book on the little engines No. 1-4 (Skarloey, Rheneas, Sir Handel, Peter Sam) the illustrator C. Reginald Dalby portrayed them in pretty much the same colour:

[Super]

Thats a nice looking book Mr No, is it an old one?

[DalaGStanator]

Not just in Four Little Engines, but also in all their subsequent appearances. Even Rusty, whose name has nothing to do with rust, is originally black and not orange. However, Duke the Lost Engine (book #25) shows Stuart (Peter Sam) and Falcon (Sir Handel) working on the Mid Sodor Railway, and they were green and blue like in the TV series before moving to the Skarloey Rwy.
 

Thats a nice looking book Mr No, is it an old one?

Yes, it's one of the original Railway Series books the show was based on. This one's from 1955, but Mr. No has the 2018 reprint.

[Mister No]

This edition is published in 2018 by Dean, an imprint of Egmont UK, but that's actually Book 10 of the Rev. W. Awdry's classic "The Railway Series" in 26 books, first published in 1945 - 1972. There are four stories in each book, and they are a must-read for any Thomas & Friends fan. (Thomas appears in Book 2). The books of the new edition are small (10.8 x 14.5 cm) but they are coming in a very nice box:

[Mister No]

Not just in Four Little Engines, but also in all their subsequent appearances. Even Rusty, whose name has nothing to do with rust, is originally black and not orange. However, Duke the Lost Engine (book #25) shows Stuart (Peter Sam) and Falcon (Sir Handel) working on the Mid Sodor Railway, and they were green and blue like in the TV series before moving to the Skarloey Rwy.

In Book 14 (The Little Old Engine) they are all red(dish) - including Duncan (Engine No. 6):



And yes, Rusty (No. 5) is black:



In "Very Old Engines" - Book 20 - the engines  (except Talyllyn, Skarloey's twin) are, as always, reddish:




In Book 25 (Duke the Lost Engine) Sir Handel and Peter Sam show up in their blue and green liveries, respectively:



Spoiler alert! On page 14 of that book their names and colours are explained:

[Super]

That is a very cool set and the box they come in is awesome.

[DalaGStanator]

It was about time I finally touched up some more Take Alongs (and the two Take 'n Plays). I started by fixing paint chips on the Milk Tanker, removing unwanted black and redoing eyebrows on engine faces I tried to restore, and adding silver to Bertie's radiator frame. But these two were my favourite results from today.


 
For Spencer, I applied black in two instances I should've added to him years ago. His front buffers are incorrectly depicted as being on a bufferbeam, with its middle being the same as his main colour (this error was fixed in Take 'n Play). After masking the coupling, I blacked out the middle so it would blend in with the smokebox. In addition, I did the same with the tender wheels to match his TOMY and TV counterparts.


 
Salty had a bit more work done to him. Previously, I achieved his yellow bufferbeams and white running board using paper labels (like I did for the running board on the TrackMaster Talking one). I was no longer impressed with how it looked, so I removed the labels and redid everything a bit more professionally. While the black parts I added back then were mostly unchanged, the white labels were applied over the original red paint (hence why the whole body and chassis were masked). I primed the bufferbeams with correction fluid and used a yellow marker after they dried. He now somewhat resembles the 2013 version, only without the corrected bufferbeam design. I have no intention to weather them this time, and the running board will stay black unless I decide to paint them on other engines. I'm not really done refurbishing the Take Alongs yet, so I currently have a few more long term plans for them. For instance, Edward and Toby's faces are now so faded they look flesh toned.

[Super]

You have been busy Lag

[leylandvictory2]

Not sure where to post this.  

Anyways, as some of you know the latest trackmaster Revolution trucks (the one with the 3D molded face) come with wobbly wheels.  I personally not a big fan of those wheels.  So I decided to swap the wheels out with the standard plastic clog wheels.  





As you can see it actually works.  

In this short clip, I hooked the modified clog wheel to the original troublesome truck.  Not sure if the trucks were naughty or it is a bad idea to couple up a wobbly truck with a regular wheels truck lol

[Super]

The wobble wheels on the short wheel based Trackmaster II Troublesome truck is...well...troublesome.

[Tons of Trackmasters]

What did i do to my trains?
I...took out a few so i could film an upcoming episode for my channel...that's it. Ah well i spent a lot of today finding images of plarail old slow coach as well

[DalaGStanator]

Yesterday, I made an improved face cast for Spenry (the Spencer-disguised-as-Henry). It was still moulded from the TOMY Edward face and made of hot melt glue, but it uses actual paint and looks closer to Henry (mainly the eyebrows). The original looked like numerous other engines, had a clearly visible patch on the side and was "painted" with a black marker and alcohol. I'll still have to make a new smokebox (and face) for either him or the TrackMaster Edward, though.

Here's a reminder of the original cast (now discarded):

P.S., that one screw under the weights of the TOMY Edward refuses to come out even with plenty of force, so I might have no chance to clean him out or restore him. How unfortunate.

[Super]

Wow, all done with Hot Glue...impressive.